Why the lack of Classic characters?

^ And, under realistic circumstances, they could've worked them in with the existing budget just as I mentioned above.

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It's a zero-sum game, though. Add a classic Doctor, and you have to make cuts elsewhere in the production. Maybe you lose a non-Doctor guest star. Maybe you lose a set. Pretty soon you have a Star Trek: The Next Generation-style bottle show where you have a bunch of Doctors squbbling in the console room for an hour because there's no budget to do anywhere else.

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Couldn't you have a younger version of the FIRST Doctor appear -- that could be a "nobody" and relatively cheap...and for some previous companions...how expensive would they be?

And for some of the older Doctors...did they HAVE to be their Doctor? Couldn't they be another Time Lord or other character that gives us a nod & a wink about their "true" identity?

^ And, under realistic circumstances, they could've worked them in with the existing budget just as I mentioned above.

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It's a zero-sum game, though. Add a classic Doctor, and you have to make cuts elsewhere in the production. Maybe you lose a non-Doctor guest star. Maybe you lose a set. Pretty soon you have a Star Trek: The Next Generation-style bottle show where you have a bunch of Doctors squbbling in the console room for an hour because there's no budget to do anywhere else.

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That's why I said A classic Doctor. Sure, it's a tradeoff but a good one.

And, in a different story, get a classic companion, no more than a regular guest star I'm sure. That's not even a tradeoff then.

Sounds like everything that basically everyone has deduced for some time now: That the BBC doesn't care almost at all about the show or its immense popularity. Its baffling, really - like the late Jon Pertwee would have said, this would not have happened in America.

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I really do wonder what people were expecting? We have a special episode, a movie length story of the shows beginnings, plus a whole heap of other programming. Fan expectation's been silly for years though. With my favourite notion being that we'd get a whole series of episodes each of which would feature a classic Doctor, or that we'd get a McGann TV movie, or maybe a whole McGann series

The BBC are celebrating the 50th. Could they have done more, clearly, could they have done a lot less, sure as hell.

Can anyone give me an example of another franchise that's gotten as much air time as some fans were expecting Who to get? For Trek's 30th we got 2 regular length episodes of the series that were airing at the time celebrating TOS, and only one of them was any good. It was Bond's 50th last year and we just got a Bond film, we didn't get two!

As for suggesting The Day of the Doctor will be crap because of budget...plenty of great films and episodes of TV shows that were made on the cheap, have been fantastic. It's the story that makes it, not the effects, not whether Paul McGann turns up and regenerates into Eccleston live on screen.

The Day of the Doctor may be great, it may be shite, but I for one won't make that determination until I see it.

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The people to blame for the high expectations are Moffat and the BBC themselves. Fan boy expect ions are always going to be unreasonably high for anything but then you add in the plain silly comments like there'll be more Who than ever.' and 'there's much more than we've revealed and even it'll be on par with the olympics' and it's long, very long, definitely feature length.' you have the perfect storm of already high expect ions and comments that are designed to raise them higher.

Now they may be designed for general audience soundbites but Moffat is a fan boy himself, he knows the reaction people will have to nonsense like that. Do you can't help but feel it is deliberate trolling for silly fanboy' reactions.

The people to blame for the high expectations are Moffat and the BBC themselves. Fan boy expect ions are always going to be unreasonably high for anything but then you add in the plain silly comments like there'll be more Who than ever.' and 'there's much more than we've revealed and even it'll be on par with the olympics'

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If Moffat was lying when he said there was so much more they haven't shown us, then I've lost all respect for him. He doesn't respect the fans.

You might think I'm being too negative, but I have an unpleasant feeling the special is going to be a disaster on the scale of Star Trek: Nemesis, and when it's all over and done with, there'll be lots of discussion about just what exactly went wrong.

I'm mystified at what has happened in BBC scheduling. Most of my life people have been complaining that they show too many repeats. And here's a perfect opportunity to show old stuff (already digitised for DVD release) for the cost of a few royalties, and win praise instead. And fill up the space they're so badly struggling with on the budget struck bbc4 if you will. Anniversary's are about being nostalgic.

Imagine if they made every weekend from the anniversary till Christmas Doctor weekend on bbc4. That's 9 nights? Show one classic story followed by a related New one - daleks, cybermen, spiders even. Have a Saturday night with a Sarah Jane ep with 3, then her farewell from 4 and The School Reunion to close - Sunday morning, Cbbc does its bit with a SJA Adventures story. Not one single bit of new material needed - though some 90 second interviews to splice wouldn't hurt. Be unashamedly nostalgic, and please the fanboys too.

And that's really not rocket surgery for an organisation who do so many repeats.

I'm sure I will enjoy it, as I do much of Moffat's era, on a purely superficial level. Like Star Trek: Voyager, Moffat's Who, to me, is pure popcorn best watched with the brain turned off.

I'll grin like a thief when John Hurt says, "I am the Doctor." I know I'll grin like a thief when David Tennant appears. Probably not so much when Billie Piper appears.

I will love seeing the three Doctors together, snarking at each other, because that's what the Doctors do when they get together.

In terms of story, I expect something not unlike "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe." Not a big cast, a couple of sets, a pre-teaser action set piece, a Bill Bailey-type guest star, pointless fanwank, and not much more. I expect something that I'll enjoy in the moment, but also something that, when I stop to think about it, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.

Oh, and I do expect a Peter Capaldi cameo. They will probably film it during the Christmas special filming.

In short, I expect the Ur-Moffat, but with three Doctors instead of one.

I know one thing, if I watch the special and don't see any of the following:

) Doctors 4-8 interacting with 11, 10 and Hurt in some way, even if it's just voiceovers (as long as its new dialogue)

) Classic series companions interacting with 11, 10 and Hurt,

Doctor Who will be over for me. It will finally prove that the new series is undeserving of the honors of the original, classic material.

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If either of those things happen (especially a William Russell appearance), that would be fantastic and I'd be thrilled.

I don't expect them, though. *shrug*

If the Anniversary Special is mainly a celebration of the last eight years with an occasional kiss to the past and there's backlash because of it, I'll be curious to see who throws whom under the bus.

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If it's mainly a celebration of the last eight years, with a bare minimum of references to the classic series, then they should stop calling it a fiftieth anniversary celebration. Just sticking Tom Baker's scarf on some random woman, and having UNIT turn up, are hardly what I call fitting throwbacks to the past.

I think some of you are asking for too much. The fact that we currently have a Doctor Who series and that we've had a ninth, tenth, eleventh and soon twelfth Doctor is the best tribute to the show's success and longevity I can imagine. Just think about the kind of celebration we'd have if the show hadn't come back in 2005.

I think some of you are asking for too much. The fact that we currently have a Doctor Who series and that we've had a ninth, tenth, eleventh and soon twelfth Doctor is the best tribute to the show's success and longevity I can imagine. Just think about the kind of celebration we'd have if the show hadn't come back in 2005.

I have to admit that I'd rather have a proper story with two Doctors than a smorgasbord of obscure references and cameos by elderly gentlemen which would serve no purpose except making a couple of fans happy. What people here say they'd like sounds more like a convention than a television show.

If it's mainly a celebration of the last eight years, with a bare minimum of references to the classic series, then they should stop calling it a fiftieth anniversary celebration. Just sticking Tom Baker's scarf on some random woman, and having UNIT turn up, are hardly what I call fitting throwbacks to the past.

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I have to agree with The Mirrorball Man here.

Fandom and Moffat have had two entirely different ideas about the anniversary special.

For fandom, it's a special episode to celebrate fifty years of Doctor Who.

For Moffat, it's a special episode that happens to fall on Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary. He said in March, when the special was about to film, that it's not "about looking backwards."

I get that fans want a valentine to the series and its fifty year legacy. But Moffat was never prepared to deliver that. He was never going to.

He made a special, to be broadcast on the anniversary, that's going to have a huge audience because by early November everyone in Britain is going to know that Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary falls on Saturday, November 23rd. I expect tributes and retrospectives in the media, so if it's nostalgia you want, you'll find it in SFX or the Grauniad and not in Moffat's special which is going to be aimed not at the fans but at the Not-We who only watch Doctor Who on Christmas Day and remember David Tennant when he wasn't on Broadchurch.

When I said I expected the anniversary special to be like "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe," I wasn't be facetious. It's a good comparison point. This year, Moffat's made an extra Christmas special, albeit one with three Doctors (possibly four if there's a Capaldi cameo) and not airing on Christmas Day.

Is it really so much to want to see Leela and/or Romana at some point in the Time War sequences? Or Susan? These are characters who haven't been seen on-screen for many, MANY years; if anyone deserves a chance to come back and do something new for the current generation, it's them.

If it's mainly a celebration of the last eight years, with a bare minimum of references to the classic series, then they should stop calling it a fiftieth anniversary celebration. Just sticking Tom Baker's scarf on some random woman, and having UNIT turn up, are hardly what I call fitting throwbacks to the past.

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I have to agree with The Mirrorball Man here.

Fandom and Moffat have had two entirely different ideas about the anniversary special.

For fandom, it's a special episode to celebrate fifty years of Doctor Who.

For Moffat, it's a special episode that happens to fall on Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary. He said in March, when the special was about to film, that it's not "about looking backwards."

I get that fans want a valentine to the series and its fifty year legacy. But Moffat was never prepared to deliver that. He was never going to.

He made a special, to be broadcast on the anniversary, that's going to have a huge audience because by early November everyone in Britain is going to know that Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary falls on Saturday, November 23rd. I expect tributes and retrospectives in the media, so if it's nostalgia you want, you'll find it in SFX or the Grauniad and not in Moffat's special which is going to be aimed not at the fans but at the Not-We who only watch Doctor Who on Christmas Day and remember David Tennant when he wasn't on Broadchurch.

When I said I expected the anniversary special to be like "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe," I wasn't be facetious. It's a good comparison point. This year, Moffat's made an extra Christmas special, albeit one with three Doctors (possibly four if there's a Capaldi cameo) and not airing on Christmas Day.